SOS Filled up Vitesse with diesel

[daverclasper]

Hi. Filled up Vitesse to go away for weekend. Tank was already a 1/4 full, so about 30 Litres of diesel.

Siphoned what I could out and cranked over with petrol pipe cracked at the carb until it pretty much stopped.

Drained float bowls and emptied the split piping going to carbs.

Put a gallon of fuel in and cranked over until fuel coming out of pipe at front of carbs (still seemed a bit oily compared to normal petrol fuel)

Was hoping to get it running enough to get to station to put more in to dilute any diesel.

Don,t know if after all that there was still some diesel in tank, especially as I've never been sure it's always been on reserve or not.

Anyway car won't start all all now Just a quick cough once. Have a spark at plugs.

Maybe still contaminated with too much diesel to even start?.

Any help brill as would like to try a get away tomorrow is pos

Thanks, Dave   

[Casper]

reserve is with the lever forwards, if that helps

C.

[Pete Lewis]

take out a plug  it may be a bit oily,  heat them up with blow lamp or on the hob  to dry  them 

there will be  amount of disel mix in the lower part of the tank  i doubt the drain plug will unscrew unless youre lucky 

can you use a bottle to feed the pump to get it started  , once hot it will run on the mix but will be smokey 

dont stop till the smoke has departed 

Pete

[dougbgt6]

Tough luck Dave could happen to any of us, I often have a moment of panic when filling my cars.

Doug

[Chris A]

The dreaded mix up, sorry to hear it. Can happen to any of us, all it takes is just a moment of distraction.

I try and double check when I fill up, having the Triumph on petrol & the modern on diesel means I do worry about getting it wrong.

Hope you still get away for the week-end.

[Anglefire]

To be honest, its at least not going to wreck your engine unlike petrol in diesels. It will smoke for a while, but just keep refilling with petrol as Pete says drive till its pretty clear!

[JohnD]

Did this in France, on way back from CLM.     To avoid a reference to Blonde Moments, it was after a VERY early start, after twenty four hours of racing.

Put about 10L of diesel in 40L tank.    Followed it with a fill up of petrol, was able to continue but Jon in escort barge said that he had never seen seven colours of smoke from Triumph before.     Very difficult start after ferry, and problems persisted through two more tankfuls, until I pulled the plugs and cleaned them, they STILL had gluey diesel on them.    So do what Pete says (ALWAYS do what Pete says!). 

Long term, no harm done, as Angle fire says.

John

[daverclasper]

Thanks everyone. Hoping to make it tom as it's my 60th B day treat from my girlfriend.

I have got a remote tank gravity fed arrangement that I could maybe fit above the carbs, If the pump feed was clamped (I think the pump stops  pumping with full pressure, eg, when the float bowls are full?).

If I get it running on this til its hot, then switch to petrol/diesel mix and get to petrol station to fill up (do I need to try and keep it running at this point, or can I switch off  and start again potentially).

I did spray the plugs before with carb cleaner, but will give them the full Monty on the stove. 

I Will be able to put a few more litres in before this.

Cheers, Dave 

 

Edited November 29, 2019 by daverclasper

[dougbgt6]

Dave,

Forget the car, I think you will be using up time your girl friend could be using to better effect!! 😜

db

[Pete Lewis]

well if all else fails  HAPPY BIRFDAY

Pete

[Peter Truman]

Yep up to now never had a diesel blonde moment but I too always check after filling, interesting because I would never have a diesel car I hate them, noisy, smelly things add blue, run them to clean the particulate filters all too much trouble!

Eons ago a chap who worked for me invented a new type of water main under pressure ferrule tapping and insertion machine, he sold the rights to one of the big water main supply companies and with the profits brought a new top of the range Ford Falcon Fairmont Tickford for his wife. As usual on a Sunday being a good husband he took it down to fill it up, in the next bay at the garage there was a very pretty girl in short short hotpants and short everything else yep being too busy looking at the scenery he filled it up with diesel, he had to buy numerous petrol cans, drain it all out there, and refill with petrol, it cost him a bomb. He said it smoked for a week after and his wife commented on this but he kept mum only owing up years after. His wife was very easy to look at anyway!

Immediately after the incident he converted the car to gas, & fitted a turbo, he was one of the first to successfully do this, all so he wouldn't fill up with diesel again. being a petrol head he took up drag racing and was quite successful.

Peter T 

[Anglefire]

I’ve had a diesel car for as long as I can remember. First one was a Peugeot 205grd with a gti body kit on it. When diesel was significantly cheaper than petrol. 
I did go back to petrol with my first company car, but reverted back to diesel at the first replacement. 
I’ve then had about 8 or 9 diesel cars  one for 7 years (and 174000 miles)  the others between 2 and 4 years  

my current car is a Skoda Superb 2ltr estate - yes it has adblue- not had to run it to clean the particulate filter yet- probably because I do a lot of miles so gets hot enough. 
but smelly? No not really. Noisy? No not really. 
demonised? Absolutely. 

 Are diesel cars the right choice for everyone? No they are not - if you have to regularly run it to clean the filter I’d say it was the wrong choice. Same thing car be said about petrol and electric cars. 
 

 

[Clive]

I like a diesel as an everyday hack. Not exciting, but does the job and no hassle. Nice long distances between fillups too.....

Now, Triumphs and diesels. Many years ago, a local chap whom I helped out from time to time ran a succession of Triumphs. A shame he never took me along with him when he bought them.

He came home with a fairly tidy 13/60, but the engine was knackered. I found a replacement unit, and at his request stripped it, honed/rings, new bearings and so on. Fitted it and all was well, ran beautifully. A few weeks later I got a call. He wasn't happy. He had been recovered off the motorway, engine smoking badly and no power. 

The car was recovered to me, and I was concerned that it was my fault. Git is started and thought it smelt oily.... I called him (he lived 50 miles away, but family were neighbours of mine) to check if he could have filled it with diesel. No, definitely not. But he had filled up with petrol a few miles before the issue. He was adamant it wasn't diesel....

I rigged a petrol can up to supply the pump, started the car, and a few minutes later all was well, ran perfectly. Made the call, he was embarrassed/apologetic etc. I drained the tank, popped 2 gallons of petrol in and took it for a drive. A little smokey, so drained and 2 more gallons and it was then OK.  I then trailered the car back to him... 

Took me about 5 years to get through the diesel/petrol mix. Used it for cleaning components, made penetrating oil with a bit (diesel/oil mix is brilliant stuff)

[Anglefire]

My previous car to the Skoda was also a diesel - but was definitely exciting !  A bmw 530d touring.  0-60 in less than 6seconds and topped out at 155 mph. Neither claim verified by me - but was very quick and did handle very well.  Shame it wasn’t also comfortable!  And averaged about 44mpg.  Over 50 on a good run but only high 30’s round town.  
 

[Chris A]

My modern is a Skoda diesel, the first diesel in a long time and boy have they improved. In February I got the particle warning light on, had to look up what it meant! At the time we were on our 3 week thermal cure and the car was only being used for very short runs at low speed. The first trip to the supermarket gave me the chance to give it a bit of a blast to heat it up, nice trail of smoke to start with 😱 but soon cleared. The ad Blue gets topped up once a year just before we go on hols.

Demonised? OH YES.

Just after buying it diesels were declared enemy N°1.

Then the government declared they want to get rid of heating by oil, guess what we use.

Followed a week or two ago by some bright spark wanting to up the tax on "SUVs" because they pollute, my Skoda is a Yeti so an SUV I guess.

Triple demonised, I'll just keep my head down til it all blows over. . .

 

[Colin Lindsay]

I've just changed to a 1.6 diesel, does 50.6 miles to the gallon and costs £30 per year to tax.

My 1.6 petrol did 37mpg and cost £220 per year to tax.

I keep forgetting to let the glow plug light go out before first startup, but it's very quiet and smooth for a diesel.

[Anglefire]

54 minutes ago, Chris A said:

The ad Blue gets topped up once a year just before we go on hols

I've put 20ltrs of the stuff in mine since April 😄 but I have done 16k miles since then too. And I've not driven it until yesterday for 2 weeks as I've been in London on a project so took the train! Average MPG being 52 which I'm happy with - especially given the Land rover I had for 7 years averaged 24   Though was a lot of fun. Both my fuel and maintenance bills have come down a lot since then 

[Chris A]

39 minutes ago, Colin Lindsay said:

 

I keep forgetting to let the glow plug light go out before first startup, but it's very quiet and smooth for a diesel.

Mine has a key less start system, press a button and it starts when it is ready too. To be honest the delay is minimal.

As for fuel consumption, my costs have gone down. Diesel is still  a little cheaper than petrol here, the Yeti is a 2 ltr about 150 hp and gives results for my normal local driving of 5.2 Litres per 100 Kms, that's how consumption is quoted here X  per 100. I reckon that gives about 54 mpg, it's Sunday so my brain gets the day off. My previous 1.6 ltr petrol was using 8.2 lits per 100 kms.

 

[Nick Jones]

Misfuelled my Vitesse with E85 years ago. Full tanks worth. It ran, but very badly. Drained it when I got home (10 miles), put some proper stuff in and it soon recovered.  Took two seasons to use up the E85 in my Honda mower which didn’t seem to mind it apart from being very hard to start from cold.

As for the demon diesel, my daily hack for the last 16 years is a 23 year old A6TDI. In spite of its age and 328k miles its Real mpg average over the last 3 fill-ups (>1600 miles) is just over 50mpg.

In spite of this I have an ex colleague who swears her nearly new Disco is greener even though that can barely get into the 30s on a run.

Particulates, she has me on (we don’t call the A6 the Sootmonster for nothing), but CO2..... no way. And as for making fullest use of the embedded carbon, she’ll never catch me in an LR product!

Nick

[Peter Truman]

Ooh, I hope I haven't offended anyone but my recollections of Diesel weren't good when we retuned to the UK in the early 60's I used to walk from school to my dads offices in Stockton up the main drag to their heavy engineering works and the fumes from the trucks passing  made my eyes water & the damage done to the buildings from the fumes always convinced me the outputs can't be good!

I know it was eons ago but even today here in OZ you still get the occasional truck belching out, the other day I was following a near new 4X4 SUV which was belching the black exhaust smoke out, I'm told (Mac truck engineer) that a diesel engined vehicle can discharge the black stuff out for 5 secs after moving off. I must just be in the wrong place at the wrong time cause I seem to see a lot of it! Here too diesels are starting to get demonized gee they had a short acceptance time less than 15 years! Not convinced that hybrid or full electric is the current answer esp here in Oz with the long distances, their footprint and cost of battery replacement, I read somewhere aTesla battery renders the upgrade non economic.

One of our Triumph Club members travels around 80 klm ea way to work he has a small petrol Merc, he frequently returns 4lt/100klm,

Fortunately our petrol isn't as dear as yours (91ULP averages around $1.35/litre) & being retired now and covering only around 10,000klm/annum cost isn't an issue.

Peter T

 

 

  

[daverclasper]

On 29/11/2019 at 21:24, dougbgt6 said:

Forget the car, I think you will be using up time your girl friend could be using to better effect!! 😜

None of that malarky these days Doug, been together 17 years.

Anyway, did get get it going next morning (thanks for the tip of getting pure petrol in first and getting it hot on that). Just a very slight bit of pinking occasionally now.

The pub let us stay an extra night at no extra cost, so all ok there.

Just out of interest. I did have to adjust the mixture after all this (half a turn on one carb). Assuming it was ok before, could this be because of unscrewing the jet holders to drain the bowls. I would have thought in theory the jets would have still been at pretty much the same height after doing them back up?.

Thanks for your support on this one.

Dave   

[Pete Lewis]

dave as  you dropped the jet holder you release the jet,   it may just need a few minutes work to re centralise  it to its needle 

back the big nut off 1/2 turn  drop the piston to get a clunk when it falls  and re nip the jet holder best done with the just up to the bridge to be more accurate centralise

then back the adjuster same amount as you wound it up so its near where you started 

Pete

 

[daverclasper]

Ah, thanks Pete. Have never taken the jets up first to centre them. makes sense.